well done oinker

i agree with nina, you shdoul consider joining Adoption Uk and going along to your local group. You will get so much useful information from other adopters in your area and their first hand experiences of your local SS.

best of all, you will hear about their children and the joys and challenges they bring. It will help you work out what kind of child would be best suited to your family

at the beginning , most people start out with

" oh we don't care, just any child aged under x, we will love them anyway"

however, the whole process will be much easier for you and your SW if you can do a lot of work on what things you think you could and could not handle.

HTH

Hi Oinker - I am posting from a slighty different perspective. I retired 5years ago after 25 years as a social worker and manager in fostering and adoption. I now work independently mostly assessing prosepctive foster carers and adoptors. I think it is really helpful that you are being given good advice by others who have gone through the process. Your social worker should be able to deal with any issues that might arise and any queries that you have. Please don't hesitate to raise anything that is worrying you or needs further explanation.

Not sure if your sw mentioned it and she/he probably did but I thought I'd mention you might find it helpful to google "Adoption UK" and "BAAF" (British Agencies for Fostering & Adoption) as there is a wealth of information available from these national organisations.

Good luck with your assessment and beyond!

Congratulations, each step is one less towards your goal.

Hi oinker, so pleased to hear from you and that it went well. Did you like your social worker?

My update is that we have finally been approved and the search for our child is now on

UPDATE...........

Had the first home visit....... All went well
Did the 4 preparation days all went well.
We are now well and truly on the path.
Have had a social worker assigned and done my first bit of homework in 20 odd years...

It's sooooooooooooooooooooo exciting....

Thanks again.....

I thought the prep course was really useful. For us it was three days, and they were exhausting and emotional. They basically take you through a whole lot of issues you need to think about- why children enter the care system, impact of abuse and neglect on development, attachment disorders, how children may act out loss and trauma, post-adoption support, contact with birth families...

The session I remember best, which was incredibly valuable, was one in which we explored the different ways you may need to parent birth children and adopted children - for example, how 'time out' might work well for a birth child but be really damaging for a child who has been kept locked in a room.

Lots of people also find prep course a great source of networking and mutual support - like the adopters' NCT. This didn't happen for me - the others were perfectly nice, but we had nothing in common (not least because they were all in burkhas and I am a Jewish lesbian ) but it was still interesting to meet them all and hear their stories.

One word of warning: you are told to be open and honest on the course, and of course you should be, but it DOES form part of the assessment process. One of our group took issue with the ethnic matching policy, and I do wonder if that might have blotted her copybook.

On the other hand, it may surprise you to hear (it surprised me) that by the time you get on to prep course they are assuming that you will probably get approved (no guarantee, obviously). In fact, they told us that they already had children in mind for some of us (not for me, sadly!).

So enjoy it, learn from it, be prepared to feel exhausted, emotionally wrung out, and very challenged. But I think you'll find it very worthwhile.

Now for the next steps....

What happens at the preparation day courses...?

Does anyone remember.

All advice and details greatly appreciated

Fantastic news! Well done

well done!